[0.16.x] Bob's Mods: General Discussion

[bobingabout]

Not sure if this is you intention or not
So far i can see with the last boblogistics update long handed inserters got removed as craftible item

no, that is correct. you now build the red "fast" inserter, and use the button at the top to turn on "Long inserter over-ride" to place a fast inserter as a long hand inserter.

Ignore the preview, it will place as a long-handed inserter, I can't fix that, I've talked to the devs about it.

[Solarwuff]

Not sure if this is you intention or not
So far i can see with the last boblogistics update long handed inserters got removed as craftible item

no, that is correct. you now build the red "fast" inserter, and use the button at the top to turn on "Long inserter over-ride" to place a fast inserter as a long hand inserter.

Ignore the preview, it will place as a long-handed inserter, I can't fix that, I've talked to the devs about it.

This way only mess up a lot of blue prints out there on the factorioblueprints site and everone els that use long hand inserter

[Ratzap]

Ignore the preview, it will place as a long-handed inserter, I can't fix that, I've talked to the devs about it.

I have a save that started as 0.12 and has come along every version update. It was ok in 0.16 till this latest change but the fast inserters I had are now express? And the long ones I had are fast ones now. Just wondering if the migration worked correctly.

[Light]

The one jarring part of the change for me is getting used to seeing colour changes, as I look at them scattered around and think they're the wrong ones when they're right. Especially seeing blue inserters thinking they're fast and not express, or more commonly not thinking they're filter inserters when they are.

However, the most frustrating part is having to constantly toggle them as long or not using multiple clicks with that button which is tedious, so I'm wondering if there's a hotkey for when the inserter is in your hand to accomplish the same task. If not, there really should be one to save some sanity, as I know I personally can't tolerate opening and closing that menu every single time to make a change.

If a hotkey is added for that then I'm totally fine with the long inserters removal, since they're often too slow to be useful late game. The long ultimate inserter will be king of my factory and see a lot of use for sure.

[clampi]

Hello Bob,

Regarding the GUI, I was at fault. I minimal-edited the control.lua from bobinserters to get rid of the button and forgot. Your changes reinstated the button so, it is not enough just to edit control.lua from bobinserters.

I still don't have a use for that button and would like to have an option to remove it, either a per-user mod setting or a keyboard shortcut. I understand why is needed for other people, but I am very much a shortcut user and the extended GUI (Alt+E) fulfills my needs when shortcuts are not enough.

I started a new game to playtest and get a feel for the new logistic changes. Here is some feedback from what I've encountered so far:

• The overall change seems to be over-engineered. I personally felt no real need for additional inserters, fast and stack were 98% of all the inserters used in my base, with few express-stack in select places, mostly for heavy beaconed electronic components and circuits. The combination of small electronic assembler (less inserters) + beacons + large amounts of electronic components required for expensive recipes were the only places were I felt the need for express stack inserters.
• The belts recipe updates make the first 2 tiers more expensive when compared with vanilla recipes. Recipes are even more expensive if you happen to play without the "cheaper steel" option enabled and expensive recipes. I got the impression that the cost would be shifted from iron-heavy toward lesser used metals, like copper, cobalt, zinc and nickel, but the changes just use more iron (first 2 tiers) either directly or as steel. This slows the startup phase even more when paired with the whole of "bobmods" pack. I do not have a strong opinion about tier >= 3, as at that point I usually have the logistics, production, energy and modules such that the factory can handle the throughput needed for aluminium, brass, titanium and nickel. I make heavy use of belts, about 185k red belt in my startup base, cost quickly escalate to the point where I found unbearable and I had to revert to the old version in order to feel the game as a game and not as work.
• The lack of a fast-throughput inserter at red-green level also made the progression slower. I simply could not feed fast electronic assemblers with red inserters having a single stack bonus upgrade.
• The lack of a filter inserter at red only science makes for added complication when paired with complex recipes found in other mods. I was forced to use more belts and filter through splitters to overcome that. See my remarks about belts above.
• Inserter recipe changes do not have such an impact due to the lesser number needed for a base compared with belts recipe changes.

Overall, the game felt slower, more time needed to achieve the same goals compared with previous version. I see no point having a mod that alters cost of recipes, there are already game settings for that.

The way I understood changes were meant to provide smoothness and ease of progression was to make more use of the "lesser citizen metals", such as nickel, cobalt and zinc. Now, here is how I see those implemented in order to fulfill the goal as understood by me:

• Belt recipes should use components that require less to none iron in the new recipes with respect to bobplates settings (cheaper steel).
• Adjust recipes for plates/gears/bearings such that the overall consumption of iron is reduced. Say, use bronze bearings, use cobalt steel plate that is mixed with a ratio closer as possible to 1-1 iron plate - cobalt steel. The changes are supposed to smooth out the rough edges not alter the balance. With the "new "steel mixing furnace is only a matter of logistics to get the ore (thank you again for that addition).
• Keep in mind that the yellow belt is the first tier belt, so it is meant to be cheap. The cost should get higher with belt tier, whether in quantity or in quality of ingredients, but the cost should be affordable not annoyingly high. Reason is that forcing a player to upgrade is not a good approach, everyone should be able to play at their own pace and style.
• Add a filter counterpart to the tier 1 inserter, being forced to use more expensive splitters may be considered challenging but is not fun gameplay.
• Either add a stack tier 2 inserter or restore the old (0.14?) stack bonus upgrades at red-green science level.
• I am not sure whether the cost of a belt is higher than of a robot, I make seldom use of logistic robots at lower tier of the base. The iron cost of a red belt seemed damn close to that of a tier 1 logistic robot to me.

On a positive side, I found that the new gas turbine generators/diesel generators are a nice option beside coal/solid fuel + steam. They occupy a niche at red+green toward blue science level when I do not have enough production/logistics for large solar arrays. In case complex modpacks are played, those generators provide the dump for various liquids and gases that would otherwise be simply vented, without any bonus energy gain. I know is a can-of-worms kind of topic, but, really, all that hydrogen from water electrolysis should be able to produce energy. It produces the most ammount of hot gases in nature, it begs to have a use, but with no positive loops, just recycle the energy.

[bobingabout]

This way only mess up a lot of blue prints out there on the factorioblueprints site and everone els that use long hand inserter

There's not a lot I can do about that. I guess I could make it so they they still work but you can't actually build them... but I could have a script that checks to see if you placed a ghost from an "obsolete" inserter type, and replace it with the equivalent new type.

Ignore the preview, it will place as a long-handed inserter, I can't fix that, I've talked to the devs about it.

I have a save that started as 0.12 and has come along every version update. It was ok in 0.16 till this latest change but the fast inserters I had are now express? And the long ones I had are fast ones now. Just wondering if the migration worked correctly.

Don't worry, that's just a rename to match the name of belts.

However, the most frustrating part is having to constantly toggle them as long or not using multiple clicks with that button which is tedious, so I'm wondering if there's a hotkey for when the inserter is in your hand to accomplish the same task. If not, there really should be one to save some sanity, as I know I personally can't tolerate opening and closing that menu every single time to make a change.

If a hotkey is added for that then I'm totally fine with the long inserters removal, since they're often too slow to be useful late game. The long ultimate inserter will be king of my factory and see a lot of use for sure.

I've been thinking about this. I don't think I'd be able to make it so if you hold a key when placing an entity it does something special, it can't do that, it's a known limitation of the game engine.
I guess it could be possible to point to an entity that has already been placed, and press a hotkey like... Shift + L... oh wait, that's already in the inserters mod. (actually, Shift + L changes pickup range, Shift +N changes drop range.)
If requested, I could add a simple "Long" keyboard toggle of that style to Logistics.

Hello Bob

I'm not quoting your whole post...
I guess if you really want, I can use something else, like, Bronze plates instead of steel plates for tier 2 (copper and tin, there's no nickel in the start area)
Added cobalt-steel as preference for gears and bearings on tier 3, though, now you're complaining I'm using too much iron.
Already told you I'd add red stack inserters
Going to add a yellow filter inserter to electronics.
And although yellow has been made more expensive... this is why I added the basic belt, so that someone just starting out can still build cheap belts. Check the bob logistics tab.

[TheTom]

Very, VERY unhappy with the last update - time for a manual rollback.

I don't really mind a rework of the hierarchy, but please - I have a running map I literally spent hours Friday reworking a ton of templates to finally use express inserters.

Now the templates are unusable for me. Thank heaven at least my current inserters would have worked, but the impact on an ongoing game is really large - not good for a minor update.

Manually rolling back and keeping it at this stage unless these changes are rolled back / optional or I start a new map, which likely happens with .17.

Really, for a minor dot update this is a large change.

[Zombiee]

Quick feedback

The button - I love it, add an option so others can hide it, but I love the button.

The inserter tiers - I need time to play with them to decide how I feel. Right now they're new and scary. The colors are an issue though, running around you tend to carry a full load of whatever tier inserter you currently use. So at ECB you have the new express (blue) inserters. The problem is all 4 types are blue and it's difficult to tell the differences at a glance. I get that you're tying them to belt color and it's all wonderfully consistent, but in terms of play, constantly grabbing filter versions instead of standard and vice versa is a concern.

The belt costs - again, need to play to make up my mind, but the steel needed for red belt scares me.

Changed inserter speeds - the speed progression is odd, but I did some testing and see that it's pretty good since changing the speed in the code is rather odd. I couldn't get it any better.

[bobingabout]

Logistics 0.16.9:
Added yellow filter inserter on Electronics
Added Red stack and stack filter inserters
All "new" inserters are known internally by their colour (Except express, it would break more to change it, for no benefit)
All "old" inserters still exist and have an item to build them (to not break old worlds, and maintain blueprints to work) but when removed give their equivalent new type item.
All existing "old" items and recipes (but not entities) are migrated to their new equivalent.
Added checks to use Cobalt steel gears and bearings if they exist.
Added a script to auto-migrate old inserter entities to their new equivalent on blueprint place. (so for example, when you place a blueprint containing a long handed inserter, you'll get a red inserter with long reach)


I'll take the thought of making icons more unique into consideration.
I'll also take hiding the button, or a key combination to turn force long handed mode into consideration.

[ukezi]

You could also make an overlay for the Icons, I recon something like an big F for filter and a S for stack. That would be easier to see then the colors of the base, or stripes.

[Ratzap]

It sure is a big shake up to my existing old factory but I have to say I like it anyway. Gives steel a bigger role and cobalt steel too.

[bobingabout]

Filter inserter overlays. I have 3 possibilities.

Option 1:
https://cmkt-image-prd.global.ssl.fastl ... 98fe18d3b2
It's like, a car oil filter or something.

Option 2:
https://cdn0.iconfinder.com/data/icons/ ... ne-512.png
Probably the best in my opinion, option sliders.

Option 3:
https://image.freepik.com/free-icon/fil ... -41056.jpg
A funnel filter, though it could be confused with oil refining's icon.


opinions?

[Light]

The belt costs - again, need to play to make up my mind, but the steel needed for red belt scares me.

As an Angel's player this is the true nightmare for those who are usually comfortable with red belts early on. The recipe in Angels with metallurgy is 8 iron plates for 1 steel plate, meaning a single red belt is 60 iron plates total. That alone is going to piss off a certain player I know who loves having a fast early game and likes to let you know his displeasure when it's slowed down.

I personally like seeing the other materials get more love and also giving some tech paths more involvement than simply being an easy upgrade. It's difficult to get used to right now, but not a deal breaker by any means.

However, the most frustrating part is having to constantly toggle them as long or not using multiple clicks with that button which is tedious, so I'm wondering if there's a hotkey for when the inserter is in your hand to accomplish the same task. If not, there really should be one to save some sanity, as I know I personally can't tolerate opening and closing that menu every single time to make a change.

If a hotkey is added for that then I'm totally fine with the long inserters removal, since they're often too slow to be useful late game. The long ultimate inserter will be king of my factory and see a lot of use for sure.

I've been thinking about this. I don't think I'd be able to make it so if you hold a key when placing an entity it does something special, it can't do that, it's a known limitation of the game engine.
I guess it could be possible to point to an entity that has already been placed, and press a hotkey like... Shift + L... oh wait, that's already in the inserters mod. (actually, Shift + L changes pickup range, Shift +N changes drop range.)
If requested, I could add a simple "Long" keyboard toggle of that style to Logistics.

Whatever must be done to make it less of a pain in the ass. When any convenience is removed, it should be replaced with something else. If the code is already there in the inserters mod then this is a no brainer.

Also, option 2 for the filter inserter icon is the best fit.

[Mobius1]

Make inserters behave in the same patter as ShinyBob's GFX layout:
Lvl 0 - burner inserter = black
Lvl 1 - yellow inserter = yellow
Lvl 2 - blue inserter = red
Lvl 3 - stack inserter = Blue
Lvl 4 - Filter inserter = Bob's light green
Lvl 5 - Express inserters = Bob's Purple

To organize the items properly on the GUI, you could arrange them like
burner inserter | yellow inserter | "red" inserter | "blue" inserter | "light Green" inserter
express inserter | express stack inserter | express filter stack inserter

Just like the level progression layout, you would apply 1 black square for burner inserters, 1 yellow square for yellow inserters, 2 red squares for "red" inserters, 3 blue squares for "blue" inserters, 4 green squares for the filter inserter and 5 purple squares for the express inserters
Altho since latest update added a lot of inserters, you could also get the whole express, turbo, express turbo family and sort them just like the regular inserters, easily doable, I think Zombiee would approve

[AndrolGenhald]

Hi Bob,

The migration seems to have failed for the splitter recipes. I no longer have the express, turbo, or ultimate splitter recipes unlocked, the research was done before migration.

[Zombiee]

Bob - tiny bug report, the base of the red stack inserter uses the blue platform instead of a red one.

----

Mobius - I've read your post many times and am still not following what you're saying. I'm assuming you're talking about a modification of my powerbars concept.

I'm guessing you were thinking to have the inserter's color change by tier (slowest = yellow, fastest = purple) and have a square or row of squares to indicate the type more clearly (purple square for filter, green for stack, etc). Or the opposite: Have the inserter's color be based on type like vanilla and have the power bar to indicate which tier. (Two red bars and a purple inserter color = tier 2 <fast> filter inserter)

Either way have issues with mixing an old color progression with a new one. Where green = stack OR green = turbo depending on where you use the color. It seems awkward just to make the transition less jarring.

I don't have any great ideas myself, but I think it probably needs to be either vanilla coloring expanded OR rip the bandaid off and embrace a new color scheme.

[Jorn86]

I just upgraded bob's logistics to 0.16.19. I had researched logistics 3 before. Now I have the blue belt and underground available, but the blue splitter isn't unlocked. And I can't fix it because the tech is already researched.

[Jorn86]

After reading up on the logistics changes a bit, I think I like the new strategy of using less iron and more of the other metals. What I don't like is breaking existing saves by changing recipes, in a minor version no less. Would have been fine, if there was some sort of "don't upgrade existing saves" warning in game.

[Northgate]

The one jarring part of the change for me is getting used to seeing colour changes, as I look at them scattered around and think they're the wrong ones when they're right. Especially seeing blue inserters thinking they're fast and not express, or more commonly not thinking they're filter inserters when they are.

However, the most frustrating part is having to constantly toggle them as long or not using multiple clicks with that button which is tedious, so I'm wondering if there's a hotkey for when the inserter is in your hand to accomplish the same task. If not, there really should be one to save some sanity, as I know I personally can't tolerate opening and closing that menu every single time to make a change.

If a hotkey is added for that then I'm totally fine with the long inserters removal, since they're often too slow to be useful late game. The long ultimate inserter will be king of my factory and see a lot of use for sure.

I fully agree with this. I really like the recipe changes and I would also welcome the use of unusual materials such as cobalt steel instead of iron/steel. Changes that really bug me are the color changes, which I don't understand. My mind just can't adapt to that. I would also like the normal long inserters to come back so I don't have to open the menu all the time.

[Nebbeh]

So I've tried looking but I cant seem to find any config for it, but is there a config to make modules require vanilla recipes? I find the recipes for modules quite annoying specially for my research setup, and I only play with a few of the bob's mods.